Such prominent businesspeople as Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, Laith Qasem of YEA and Mitchell Baker of the Mozilla Foundation gathered at the Entrepreneurs Forum in Princess Sumaya University, Amman, Jordan.

A gala dinner to develop an action plan about how to position Jordan as the Silicon Valley of the region heralded the beginning of Global Entrepreneurship Week in Jordan this evening.

Building on the success of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2008, a diverse group of partners from around Lebanon will present 4SITE Forum: Investing in Sustainability | Innovation | Technology | Entrepreneurship in Beirut on November 18 and 19. The event is shaping up to be an exciting, engaging, and innovative 2-day forum, designed to promote the growth of sustainable and innovative businesses in the Middle East and North Africa by building a network of the pitvotal participants, including innovators and entrepreneurs from across various sectors of the marketplace.

Throughout the Arab world the seeds of a renaissance in entrepreneurship are emerging. Hundreds of initiatives are being launched to promote this career path. One of these is Global Entrepreneurship Week, taking place in countries throughout the Arab region.

One of the top GEW events in this part of the world is the Best Practices in Entrepreneurship Policy conference. This conference is designed to bring together the best minds who want to nurture this next generation, by identifying and pushing forward an agenda of best practices in the many areas that affect young entrepreneurs. These policies range from education, financial reforms (including angel investing laws and practices), bankruptcy laws, credit access, youth-enterprise tax-holidays, intellectual property protection, and competition policies to judicial practices, bureaucratic efficiency, capital requirements, and employment laws.